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Objective

The CIVISTI project will identify new emerging issues for European Science and Technology by uncovering European citizens' visions of the future and transform these into relevant long term science, technology and innovation issues, which are of relevance for European policies of S&T and for the development of FP8. The CIVISTI project will do this by a) consult national citizen panels through an informed deliberation process, focussing on long term visions, needs and concerns of the citizens; b) develop an analytical model for transformation of the visions into relevant issues for future science and technology; c) by use of the analytical model, through stakeholder and expert participation processes, analyse the citizen visions and transform them into posible priorities for research programmes; d) validate the priorities through a second round of citizen consultation. The project will develop a novell citizen participation process with the aim of making cost-effective citizen participation possible in foresight processes. CIVISTI will include new European actors in the foresight processes in order to expand the experience and capacity of foresight among the member states, institutions and researchers.

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Society's visions foresee a better future

An ambitious EU project is consulting with citizens of different European countries to map their visions on the future and turn them into reality. These visions will be incorporated into the EU's next Framework Programme for a better Europe.

The best way to create a true knowledge society in Europe and globally is by involving society in the process and giving it a mouthpiece to voice its needs and concerns. This holds true particularly with respect to science and technology (S&T) development, which can benefit greatly from enhanced democratic debate and a more engaged and informed public. Knowledge and innovation could very well become the main sources of wealth creation globally, and societal relevance of S&T will enhance the European economy in the global arena.
The EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) wants to enhance society's role in research, promoting its participation in research and science policy-making. This change is being embodied through the EU-funded 'Citizen visions on science, technology and innovation' (Civisti) project which explores how defining relevant, proactive research agendas could gain from consultation with citizens. In other words, society's concerns and expectations can be collected and transformed into relevant research agendas.
To achieve this, Civisti is outlining new and emerging issues on European S&T. It is producing a set of policy options relevant to future European Framework Programmes and sitting down with citizens in seven Member States. This initiative is being supported by the analytical capacity of experts and stakeholders.
Civisti has already established citizen panels in these seven countries and helped them develop 69 future visions. One of the key characteristics of these visions was the holistic and interdisciplinary treatment of future issues. Since expert-based thinking is often specialised rather than holistic, and is disciplinary rather than interdisciplinary, the citizens' or lay-experts' visions are expected to provide new ideas and viewpoints. Formal experts and stakeholders can then consult these visions and emerge with another way of examining and interpreting new issues related to S&T policy.
The citizens' 69 visions lend insight into the hopes, dreams, fears and challenges they have for the future European society. They represent unique direct input from citizens on the politics of the future, with relevance to a number of policy areas. They will offer direct input for the design of the future EU research policy and more specifically to further European Framework Programmes.
In this way, Civisti will produce concrete and direct recommendations for policy-makers, supported by citizens, S&T experts and stakeholders, too. Citizens will evaluate and prioritise the recommendations in order to define what they consider is most important for their future.
Last but not least, the project will develop and test an innovative methodology for citizen participation on a long-term basis. This is a very cost-effective way of helping Europeans to participate in creating a better world to live in.

For Europe to become the most advanced knowledge society in the world, it is imperative that legitimate societal concerns and needs related to science and technology development are taken on board, entailing an enhanced democratic debate with a more engaged and informed public and better conditions for collective choices on science issues. Knowledge and innovation could very well become the main sources of wealth creation globally, and societal relevance of science and technology will enhance the European economy in the global competition. The EU Seventh Framework Programme aims at increasing the societal relevance of research, and thus encourages greater public engagement and promotes the participation of society in research and science policy-making. This change in perspective recognises that research activities are a special type of social activity that is embedded in a wider societal context.

The CIVISTI project is based upon the idea that the process of defining relevant and proactive research agendas could in many respects gain from consultation of citizens. The citizens are the carriers of the concerns and expectations of the future, and with the right facilitating methods, such concerns and expectations can be collected and transformed into relevant research agendas. In short, CIVISTI will: a. produce a list of new and emerging issues for European S&T, b. produce a set of policy options of relevance to future European Framework Programmes and c. base these products upon a novel process of citizen participation in seven member states, supported by the analytical capacity of experts and stakeholders.

Within the first project period of CIVISTI the project focused on first developing the whole methodology of the project, establishing citizen panels in seven EU Member States and assisting the citizen panels in creating visions for the future. The most important results of the first project period are the visions produced by the citizens. The seven citizen panels produced 69 future visions. One of the key characteristics of the visions was the holistic and 'interdisciplinary' treatment of future issues. Since expert-based thinking can often be characterised as specialised instead of holistic, and disciplinary instead of interdisciplinary, the visions created by the citizens (or 'lay-experts') in the CIVISTI project are expected to provide new ideas and viewpoints to the experts and stakeholders of how to think about and interpret new issues of science and technology policy.

The expected final results of CIVISTI can be split in three categories. First there are the 69 visions produced by European citizens. These visions give an insight into the hopes and dreams and the fears and challenges people see for the future European society. They can be considered as direct input from citizens from seven EU member states to the politics of the future on a number of policy areas. The visions are unique and original input is from citizens to policy-makers, industry and stakeholders within the sphere of the visions. Second there is a list of new and emerging issues for European S&T. This will have the form of recommendations for future research agendas and policy options for European science and technology politics. This list will be direct input for the design of the future EU research policy and more specifically to future European Framework Programmes (FP8). In this way CIVISTI will produce concrete and direct recommendations for policy-makers, which is formulated by S&T experts and stakeholders on the basis of future visions of European citizens and validated and prioritised by citizens to know what they find most important for their future. The design of the results ensures that they can be fed directly into the processes of defining FP8. Third, CIVISTI will develop and test an innovative methodology for citizen participation on long-term foresight, which will be characterised by being very cost-effective.